CAIRO: Rights organizations condemned the alleged pressures imposed by the ruling military council on ONTV anchor Yosri Fouda, who decided Friday to indefinitely suspend his TV show "Akher Kalam" (Final Word) in which he was planning to host outspoken SCAF critic novelist Alaa Al-Aswany. Fouda had apologized Thursday night for cancelling an episode in which he planned to analyze the televised interview of two members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) aired the previous night and hosted by Mona El-Shazly and Ibrahim Eissa on Tahrir TV and Dream TV simultaneously. "Nothing is tougher for a journalist than to stop writing or expressing himself; we know what a difficult decision it was for Fouda to lose his audience," the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said in a statement released Saturday. "But it is a professional stance and a form of protest by a respected journalist who respects his principles and his audience,” the statement continued, singling out Fouda's commitment to either “speak the truth or remain silent,” as he wrote in a note published on his Facebook page. Fouda had also written that in the last few months, there has been a vigorous attempt to retain the essence of a regime that Egyptians toppled because of its corruption. "Those attempts have taken different paths, some inherited and some innovative. But they all meant to put pressure, directly and indirectly, on those who still believe in the noble goals of the revolution and try to respect people and respect themselves to force them to practice self-censorship on what cannot be hidden or beautified," he wrote. Immediately following the publication of Fouda's statement, a group of journalists launched an initiative to establish an independent channel via an initial public offering to encounter the crackdown on independent media through the establishment of a channel owned by the people, free from the control of businessmen and state institutions. "The only obstacle that will face such an initiative is licensing," Deputy Director of the Egyptian Center for Human Rights Studies, Ziad Abdel Tawab told Daily News Egypt. "The Egyptian authorities will refuse to issue a license for such a channel as other independent channels like Tahrir TV channel is not yet licensed and Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr was shut down," he added. Abdel Tawab explained that Egyptian authorities refuse the existence of independent media that is beyond the reach of state supervision and intervention. He also said that any legal action against the authorities is "extremely difficult as they pressure individuals through phone calls and verbal threats which are extremely difficult to prove legally," he said. Responding to rumors and criticism that ONTV had pressured Fouda to suspend his program, the channel asserted on its Twitter account that “the statement by Fouda explains that he is not confronting the channel but is confronting the hostile climate against media freedom…We totally support him.” ONTV also urged its critics to divert their criticism towards "those who refuse to give us a free media.” Ahmed Ragab, the producer of the show, told Daily News Egypt in a telephone interview that there have been pressures on the channel as well as on the program's crew. "However, the channel never pressured us to do anything that we don't believe in and they left the final decision to Fouda," he said. Ragab said that Fouda and his crew were working towards one goal, to clear their conscience, and that they were working in total independence from the channel's administration. "The administration kept fighting the pressures with us, until Fouda refused to handle it anymore," he added.
